Presentation at Bresslergroup
So we had a visit at design firm Bresslergroup this Tuesday (3/22) at their headquarters in downtown Philadelphia.
Because I’m terrible at pathfinding and so is my navigation computer, I managed to miss the part of the Bresslergroup visit that involved looking around their facilities and all the (presumably) cool stuff they do. I was, however, able to see the presentation that Bill and Dan gave for us afterwards.
The presentation mostly focused around the design process and was divided into four parts, breaking down the important aspects of both product development and the product itself.
There was a strong focus on making sure that they, as designers, had a clear understanding of what a product under design would do - not necessarily in the “actions” sense so much as in the sense of having an understanding of how what they were designing would come across to the user: there’s important differences between things that do what the customer wants and expects and is likeable and relateable versus something that does what it should but doesn’t provoke a positive emotion out of the user versus something that looks intriguing but ultimately lacks the functionality that the user expects of it. While, of course, they designed things to fall in the “fashionable and functional” category, if given the choice between the latter two, they indicated that (perhaps against the perception of what a stereotypical design firm does) would pick making a device that does what people want it to do. They explained that in some depth by talking about the importance of the fact that today’s consumers are connected - with the Internet at our disposal, any shopper can get information on a product they’re viewing - and with smartphones and the like, no longer just when they’re shopping online - and discover previous purchasers’ experiences with it after they took it home. A thing that failed to live up to its promise, then, can be investigated by someone in a store immediately, and that person will move on.
That’s not to say that aesthetics aren’t considered important. Another point they talked about was the impact of the unboxing experience, and how that first encounter with a product needed to create a positive and memorable emotional response in the purchaser. It’s a small aspect that would be easy to overlook for an industry outsider but which contributes that much to making a product inspire loyalty in a customer.
As far as employment tips went, some useful points came up during the Q&A portion of the visit: on the topic of portfolios, Bill mentioned the importance of having a good variety of material in one’s portfolio entries. Specifically, having nothing but finished views of finished products and their boards isn’t terribly endearing or useful to a potential ID employer; a solid portfolio contains projects with all states of development visible, from the earliest sketches through to the end with plenty of steps along the way. He particularly seemed to emphasize the importance of sketchwork, and identified it as a good sign to employers that a person is capable of quickly jotting down ideas without the slowing and belaboring process of translating thoughts into a CAD model.
